City builders have always been a fun time, but the real peak for me was way back in the day with Sim City 2000. My word, I sunk endless hours into that game. Mostly just starting new games, because I couldn't keep my city profitable at first, but still, a fun time.
Not too long ago, I spent some hours with Cities: Skylines and its sequel, and it was fun enough. But honestly, it quickly became more of a traffic planner than a city builder. Traffic jams everywhere, all the time.
I also found myself with a consistent lack of educated employees, despite eventually constructing educational buildings on just about every block out of sheer frustration. These businesses with missing employees would eventually close down, and leave me to hunt for these condemned buildings and bulldoze them to create space for new businesses.
This and many other issues quickly sucked the fun out of the Cities franchise for me. Maybe city builders are best left in the past.
Then I found Tropico 6 in the PlayStation Plus catalog. I remember watching my older brother play previous titles in the series, and I thought they looked boring. But I had this sudden itch to play a city builder on console (or else I could always boot up Manor Lords on the PC). So I downloaded Tropico 6, and I don't regret it one bit.
Am I just getting old, or is this a city builder worth its salt?
Tropico 6 is actually a really good city builder
Having never played a Tropico game, I always thought of them as meme games. Simple, silly games not meant for serious gamers (says the guy with almost 150 hours in Stardew Valley). But upon booting up Tropico 6 for the first time, I was a little overwhelmed by the tutorial. There was a lot to remember.
Now, being overwhelmed by a tutorial is usually a sign of bad game design, but city builders are different. You want to feel overwhelmed in the beginning, because that means you're facing a game with some complexity. And while more simplistic city builders are fun enough, they lack the staying power of more complex titles.
Little did I know that I would discover one of the most fluid and complex city builders I'd ever played.
It doesn't have quite as many moving parts as something like Cities: Skylines II, but Tropico 6 brings a different flavor to the table. The kind where you can play however you want, and there are countless possibilities.
Do you want to be a benevolent leader who cares for the needs of the people and strives for prosperity? A tad vanilla, but to each their own. Do you prefer to build a prison island where the inmates are your main source of income? Go right ahead. You can be an authoritarian dictator who hosts "fair" elections by adjusting the polls and arresting your opposition.
And that's just off the top of my head. There are endless blends between these playstyles, and probably a whole lot more that I haven't even thought of yet. For now, I'm having loads of fun with the game, pushing the limits and seeing just how far I can go before an all-out coup destroys my rule.
While I work towards building a one-million-dollar Swiss bank account, I highly suggest you check out Tropico 6 if you haven't yet, especially if you've never played the series before. It's currently on the PlayStation Plus catalog for free, so give it a go while you can.
However, if you're a fan of the series, the communities I've visited seem to think the latest entry in the series actually falls a bit short. I'm curious as to what you think. Leave me your thoughts on the series—or other great city builders you've recently played—in the comments down below, and let's get a discussion going.
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The post Am I getting old, or is this 2019 city builder better than I thought? appeared first on Destructoid.
